A Soul on a Journey

Posts Tagged ‘loosing your wallet’

Recently I lost my wallet. Inside it held my driver’s license, bank debit card, an assortment of credit cards, my business cards, about $25 in cash, as well as things like auto club card, library card, expired Dollywood season pass (don’t laugh. I used that as a second picture ID once), and a few store loyalty cards.

I mentally retraced my path of when I had last seen it. I’d last actually seen it around 9:30 that morning when I bought some groceries. It was now 11:30 p.m. In between those hours I had dragged my purse (piece of luggage?) from car to house, from house back to car, and repeated that a few more times before finally taking it into work. At no time did I take my wallet out of my purse since purchasing the groceries at 9:30 a.m.

So I deduced my wallet was most likely in one of three probable places. First I thoroughly checked the car to make sure it hadn’t somehow tumbled out and landed on the floorboards or wedged between the passenger seat and door. Not finding it that way, I figured it had to be either 1) left behind at the store and turned in by a good Samaritan or carried off by a not-so-good opportunist. Naturally the store was long closed by 11:30 p.m. 2) it could be in my driveway at home. If so, there was a 50/ 50 shot it was still lying where it landed. Or 3) there was a slim chance it was inside the house, lying just inside the door by the pet’s water dish. I have a raised, double dish diner with a food and water dish. I keep the water bowl on the right side and the left side is open. I have a tendency to leave my purse resting there when I am in and out of the house like I was today. There was a chance the bag tipped over (based on my hasty speed today), the wallet could have slipped out, and landed under the raised feeder. That would be so awesome if that was the case.

My concern was getting home without a wallet or ID. Plus, in the event it wasn’t at home, I still had a dog walk to do after work, plus one more in the morning before the store would open so I could check with them. That’s a lot of driving without my license. I took a mental stock of what was in my wallet. I’d need a debit card soon for gas too. I crossed my fingers it was safe somewhere.

In the meantime I started working out a plan on what to do just in case it wasn’t where I was hoping. How was I going to survive for a few days without wallet, ID, debit, and credit cards? It opened a whole new can of situations when I had a jam-packed schedule of activities ahead of me. How do we survive when our basic survival tools are suddenly just gone?

And the whole thing got me to thinking of how simple things used to be. Once upon a time, all we had was cash and people who actually knew who we were. Telling someone our name was good enough. We drove things that did not require a license to operate. Before that we had the barter system. Personally, I would love to see the barter system return en masse as a normal standard of doing business. After cash we developed checks. I still use those a few times a month too. And then came the advent of plastic, with credit cards and debit cards with enough PINS and codes to make anyone’s head spin.

Like many people, I have identity theft protection, and bank alerts for suspicious activity on all my plastic cards. I had even gone so far as to photocopy the front and back of each of my plastic cards and keep those copies stashed in a safe place should I ever need to call that lost and stolen 1-800 number in mini-type on the back.

Unfortunately, I had not kept up on the new, updated cards that gradually replaced the expired and obsolete cards. Shame on me. I really regretted that now. Actually, in the heady rush of not knowing where my wallet was, that was my only regret–not keeping up on current photo copies of updated cards.

All things considered, I could have other regrets I suppose.

So after work, I carefully drove home, scoured the driveway, and rushed inside. Moving the pet’s water dish aside, there was my wallet lying on the floor. I breathed a sigh of relief, snatched it up, and dashed out to do my next dog walk. No time to think of simpler times now, I had work to do!